In the 19th century, after being bitten by a rabid dog, Europeans used a soldering iron to burn the bite to treat rabies. Pasteur was shocked to see this scene, and soon after he found a child, a decision that would later change the world......
As early as 2300 B.C., the existence of rabies was discovered by mankind at that time, and in the Babylonian Eshnuna Code it was written: "If a dog goes mad and bites another person, resulting in death, the owner of the dog must pay a sum of compensation." ”
This is the earliest surviving record of rabies, but no one knew what the cause was, they just knew to stay away from these crazy dogs.
For a long time there was no effective cure for rabies, but doctors never gave up on treating the disease, and in the first century A.D., a famous doctor named Celsus proposed a way to burn the wound after being bitten by a dog.
As cruel as it sounds, there was no other way at the time, and desperate patients had to resign themselves to their fate after burning their wounds, waiting for time to give an answer.
Until 1885, a little boy named Joseph · Mestre was bitten by a dog, and the doctor diagnosed him as hopeless, but the desperate parents were unwilling to give up, so they turned to the famous local microbiologist Louis · Pasteur for help.
Pasteur began his research on rabies as early as 1881, and initially guessed that the bacteria were hiding in the saliva of diseased animals, but when he looked under a microscope, he did not find the bacteria.
What's even stranger is that when he injected this saliva into the rabbits, some of the rabbits fell ill and died, but some of the rabbits were still alive and well.
Pasteur soon realized that his guess was wrong, and he thought about the symptoms of rabies, wondering if the virus was lodged in the host's brain.
So he took the brain tissue of the diseased animals and injected them into the rabbits, which all died of the disease this time.
Even if the virus is discovered, the ultimate question, that is, how to save these sick people, is still unsolved, and after thinking about it, he thinks that the virus should change in virulence with the length of time it is placed.
Speculation often requires experimental verification, and Pasteur dried the spinal cord solution of the dead rabbit for 14 days and then reinjected it into the dog, and the experiment was successful, and the dog survived.
Despite the success of the experiment, Pasteur was still unsure whether to use it or not, until Mestre's family found him, so he gritted his teeth and injected the placed spinal fluid.
Luckily, he succeeded! The boy survived, and Pasteur's name spread throughout the world, bringing new hope to rabies sufferers who were left to their fate.
Rabies is a highly lethal disease, and even if a vaccine is available, it does not mean that the person bitten is not at risk, so it is still very necessary to vaccinate pets in a timely manner.
Source:
Deadly diseases from animals People's Information 2021-12-18 21:00
